The details are still being worked out, which isn't a surprise when you have 24 major-conference programs with unique interests, scheduling philosophies and scheduling agreements. But Delany hopes to have a more specific idea of the scheduling models in the next few months.

"We do want it all fit in," Delany said Wednesday. "Whether that means you have 12 games or 11 games or 10 games in the first cycle ... we're going to want 12 games ASAP. A lot of scheduling has been done in other nonconference areas that's reliant on this."

Big Ten pushing seven-win minimum for bowl eligibility, aiming to keep mediocrity (its own teams included) out of the postseason

For a conference that's so recently benefited so much from loose bowl-eligibility requirements, the Big Ten is taking seemingly painful stand.

The idea: mediocrity shouldn't be celebrated.

Big Ten athletic directors and commissioner Jim Delany are pushing legislation requiring college football teams to win seven games to be bowl-eligible — despite the fact that four six-win Big Ten teams played in bowl games just last season and 11 Big Ten clubs have participated in bowls since the 12-game schedule was introduced in 2002.

League commissioner Jim Delany said Wednesday that the Big Ten will have discussions with the Pinstripe Bowl, played outside in late December at New York's Yankee Stadium, about a potential future tie-in.

The Big Ten's current bowl lineup expires after the 2013 season. The lineup is heavy on Florida and Texas games and features only one contest (Little Caesars Pizza Bowl) in the Big Ten footprint, which is played indoors at Detroit's Ford Field.

The Pinstripe Bowl, which launched in 2010 and pits the Big 12 against the Big East, would put Big Ten teams in a familiar climate in late December.

The Big Ten is bringing together its brainpower to help gather more information about the effects of concussions in sports.

Commissioner Jim Delany announced Wednesday that the league members will launch a research initiative about how head injuries affect athletes in all sports. The Committee on Institutional Cooperation, the Big Ten's internal academic consortium, which includes all 12 sports members and the University of Chicago, will manage the project and the research efforts.

"We basically lack across the country great longitudinal information," Delany said. "So we're trying to organize ourselves in a way to begin to develop that information. We've got 9,500 athletes [in the Big Ten], so what that is over a four year period is 40,000 student-athlete years. We're having important discussions with other major research institutions, the presidents in some of those other conferences, are determining whether or not they want to join with us in this collaboration."

"You don't want to sell 20,000 tickets in two hours and find out that 10,000 or 8,000 of those were washing around in the secondary market leading up to the game," Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said Wednesday. "So the game was sold out, but the tickets that were out there were not efficiently distributed."

The Big Ten will explore new ticket-sales technology to fix the situation going forward. One proposal is to have fans buy tickets -- and possibly even rental cars and hotel rooms -- on a conditional basis, where they could be refunded if their team doesn't qualify for the title game.

"You're actually able to sell the same ticket three times," Delany said. "... In the bowl system and in Major League Baseball and in sports generally, the technology is providing opportunities for more efficiently moving tickets into people's hands and into event operators."